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Sunday, October 24, 2010

3 days and 650 miles later, Ard Boyz 2010 is over. Thank you to anyone who helped me playtest against specific match ups, character combos, offered to let me borrow miniatures, and hooked me up on short notice so everything went smoothly for me. To say that the tournament went off without a hitch would be a lie, so I will get into that later, but first the results. I got third place overall, and the placings for the tournament were 1st (tie) Skaven and Dark Elves, 2nd Dark Elves, and 3rd Skaven (me). I got a nifty dagger trophy, zero prize support (for anyone at the tournament), and I guess a ticket/invitation to the Las Vegas GT in 2011.

The third place trophy dagger.

To start, let me explain the battle points. The TO stated he hadn't gotten the rules pack for 'Ard Boyz until the morning of, and he had already printed out all the scoring sheets, so we were going to be using his scoring for the 'Ard Boyz Finals. 5 points for a Massacre, 4 points for a Major, 3 points for a Minor, and 2 for a Draw or something similar. There were the normal 4 points bonus per scenario. There were also no Victory Points scored, so there was no tie breaker.

The Bunker and the Tournament hall.

Game 1, table 14.

None of his Marauders were wysiwyg, but I didn't complain.

Game 1 I drew a Warriors of Chaos player from Georgia. In his list was 2 Sorcerer Lords (one on a disc with tzeentch and one on foot with shadow magic), 2 blocks of 50 marauders of khorne with great weapons, 2 blocks of 18 Warriors (nurgle and tzeentch), and 2 warshrines of tzeentch. My deployment was fine enough. I set my cannons back far enough but with line of sight. My Bell had clan rats, storm vermin, and both hell pits around it on the right side of the board. On the other side of a watchtower that was directly in the center of the board I place my other slaves and plague furnace unit. I forgot to scout my night runners, and then forgot to infiltrate them until turn 3 (one unit never came in).

I made sure to even post in my pregame post I wanted to remember the Screaming Bell ringing. I forgot the entire game until the last 2 turns! On top of that, it was probably the worst game of magic I have played in 8th edition, though I didn't lose any casters to the warp. Major props to my opponent for using his Infernal Puppet FLAWLESSLY. First turn, miscast Plague, and my foot Grey Seer loses 1 magic level. Second turn, miscast warp lightning with the bell seer on TWO DICE, lose THREE magic levels and I am left only with crack's call. Turn three, miscast with the foot seer again with the thirteenth spell, and lose his remaining 3 magic levels! Amazing. Amazingly bad.

The rest of the army sure picked up the slack though. I charged a large unit of slaves (to deny steadfast) and both Hell Pit Abominations to the right side horde of Marauders. I annihilated them and one abomination overruns into the Tzeentch Warriors. Next turn the second Abom charges the Tzeentch Warriors and the two finish the unit and the foot lord. They later kill a warshrine, though one dies.

On the other side of the board, the Plague Furnace cut through the other Marauders before getting smashed my the Nurgle Warriors. I then use Slaves and multiple Warlock Engineer speedbumps to keep the unit from doing anymore damage to my army.

The game ends and I lost the Furnace unit, an Abomination, and a couple Warlock Engineers. Major Win with two bonus battle points.

Game 2, Table 4.

Half the army was not wysiwyg, but again, no complaints.

For this game, I played a cool kid who brought his Daemons of Chaos led by a Bloodthirster, with 40 Bloodletters with a Herald, 30 Horrors with a Herald and The Changeling, 26 Plaguebearers with a palanquin herald bsb, 5 hounds, 3 flamers, and The Masque.

I set up first and the majority of my army was deployed in the center, with a building splitting my deployement zone. I had a WLC in the building, a WLC on the far right flank, and everything else in the center. My opponent rolled and placed his horde of Bloodletters on the right flank and the Bloodthirster on the left. Most other units were in the center.

I used slaves and Warlock speedbumps again to slow and angle the Bloodletters until the final 2 turns of the game. They were the biggest threat to me. The Bloodthirster was similarly slowed with the Storm Banner, and then by sacrificing units of Storm Vermin and Clan Rats to it, keeping it away from my important unit. My opponents biggest mistake was charging his Plaguebearers into my Plague Monks and Plague Furnace... who had the Banner of Eternal Flame. They smashed through the unit and his bsb in 2 rounds, and things fell apart from there. Though I will say he vaporized one Hell Pit Abomination because we forgot to roll the sight distance as per the scenario both first turns! All the forgetting was hurting me. Though I did remember to ring the bell every time this game, and rolled Scorch ever single turn after the first!

After I cut through the Plaguebearers and BSB, my Abomination, a giant unit of Slaves, and the Plague Monks were able to multi charge the Horrors to destroy them. MNore magic and the amazing Doomrocket was able to waste away Bloodletters until a Slave/Hell Pit multi charge finished them off and finished the game.

I had lost Storm Vermin, some Warlocks, one WLC, and a Hell Pit again, but Massacred my opponent and recieved full bonus points.

Game 3, Table 1!

This game was marred for me because of a few things. My opponent and I had an argument for about 30 minutes when he cast Dwellers Below. PAGE 10 of the rulebook states: where a model has more than one value for the same characteristic, a characteristic test is always taken at the highest value. He cast Dwellers on my Bell unit. I lost 20 of 40 Clan Rats, but when I rolled a 5 for the Bell (the Strength of the Rat Ogres), he claimed the Grey Seer should be killed because he is only Strength three (which is incorrect). The judge would not rule in either players favor because he didn't want to effect the outcome of the tournament (WHAT?!), and after arguing for over 25 minutes, we diced off for it and I won.

In addition to this the rounds were cut short to 2 hours and 30 minutes, because the TO wanted to leave early. Combined with the argument, we only played THREE TURNS on table one of the 'Ard Boyz finals final game.

My opponent set up and left his flank exposed to my Gutter Runner scouts, and I set up all 10 at exactly 12" away from his war machine gunline. He placed a unit of 10 Flagellants in the building that represented our tower. I flanked the tower in my own deployment zone with each Abom and Slave unit, with my Bell in the dead center. It was honestly the best deployment I could have asked for, as the Aboms and SLaves multi charge through his units, taking out the large unit of halberdiers, and the other Abom on his own flank charging the Greatswords and wiping them out. At the end of the game, my opponent had 6 knights on the board, 2 cannons, his popemobile, and the unit in the tower. I had lost a unit of Gutter Runners and 2 Cannons, no other full units lost.

Where I lost the game was the first turn magic phase. I cast the 13th Spell on the tower, killed all 10 flagellants, and placed my own Clan Rats in the tower. I should have set up to cast Crack's Call and just destroy the building from the get go like I had designed my list around!!! After that, I was unable to ring the bell or cast Crack's call in the rest of the limited game. A giant unit of swordsmen overtook the Clan Rats in the tower, and won the game as the rest of the Empire army was massacred around them.

I still scored all 4 bonus points for the final scenario. After the results were tabulated, there was a THREE WAY TIE FOR FIRST. The judge then went back after the tournament was over, and we had been playing one way all day, and redid the battle points according to the original rules. There was still a tie for first, but I guess that is better than a three way tie. The results were:

1st- Skaven1st- Dark Elves2nd- Dark ELves3rd- Skaven

On a lighter note, results and the final game aside, I had a great trip and met a lot of great people. I played games with fellow Warhammer nerds from across the country, went drinking with new friends from Minnesota and Louisiana, and got to play at an amazing venue. Next time hopefully they actually run an event as advertised... with correct battle points, tie breakers, correct game time limits, and judges who will actually rule on something to prevent the loss of game turns to a rules disagreement.

Here are some more Skaven-related pictures. I would have liked to get more of everything, but was busy.

It boggles my mind that the GW 'Ard Boyz finals can be so mismanaged. I can't believe your opponent argued with you about the mount issue, the rulebook is pretty clear on the correct answer.

That said, I'm glad you did well. I find the hardest thing about 8th ed is remembering all the stuff that's going on. I'm thinking about writing up a cheat sheet for my army with reminders of things I commonly forget like the Storm Banner and ringing the Bell.

One of the quad Hydra guys (the 1st place tie) actually beat the player I played on table one, but then the guy I played entered his wrong battle points and changed the final pairings across the board. They corrected the points afterward I guess, but it changed everyone's games.

Yeah you are right with the different placings. I had assumed the guy on Table 2 was the one who won the tournament. As I mentioned on Warseer, I didn't get to congratulate them at the tourney in the aftermath, so congrats to them both on their hard as nails lists! I really wish I would have gotten to play one of the two on table 1 like I should have.

Fort Wayne, Indiana. We have a pretty active fantasy group here, I think that the Adepticon Best General has been won by someone from here 4 of the last 6 years, so not too bad for a small market like Fort Wayne.